I nodded. “It is. I believe that I have found reason to reopen the investigation into his disappearance, but that does mean I will have to ask you more questions about that day.”
Elizabeth kept her head lifted; her eyes fully focused on me. “I understand. Can I ask for what reason?”
“You are aware,” I began carefully, “that there was a forensic anthropologist here, working on identifying a grave found by the church?”
She nodded. “That’s where Gillian met you.”
“It is. We have taken the remains into our custody after Dr Schmidt’s death, and we believe there to be a connection between his work and your son. We can only speculate for now,” I hastily added. “But the more I know, the sooner I can say for sure.”
Elizabeth studied me with an open face, expression flitting. If she managed to grasp at what I insinuated, she didn’t react strongly, only nodded. I supposed that at this point, any answer was a good answer.
“Are you happy to begin?” I asked. Another nod. “If you need to stop, take a break or kick us out at any time, you just say the word.” She managed a light smile and nodded again.
I took a deep breath and leant forward, my arms on my legs. “We understand that Jack was very particular about his routine and never strayed from it.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Never. I tried to tell the police that at the time, but they just thought of him as any other fourteen-year-old boy, but he wasn’t. Jack was different.”
“May I ask a delicate question?” Fry asked politely. When Elizabeth nodded, she asked. “Did you ever wonder about Jack being autistic? Only that my little brother is, and I recognise some of the behaviours.”
Elizabeth made her gaze steadily. “I didn’t at the time. I suppose I didn’t know enough about it. But now, yes, I do think he was. And I wish I knew then, did something to support him.”
“From the sounds of it, Jack was very well supported by you and everyone else in this village,” I said. Elizabeth smiled again, faintly. “We know that he often did little jobs around the village for your neighbours. Was there anything that he might have thought to do that day? Whilst he waited for you to come home?”
“I tried all the usual places,” Elizabeth answered with a heavy sigh. “Called Gillian since he sometimes helped her out.” She glanced at the old woman. “Some of the other neighbours, too.” She breathed in and out deeply. “He sometimes went to the farm across the lane to help feed the animals, but Mrs Walker always called me first to check. Sometimes he’d help the vicar at the church move a heavy pew or change the flowers over, give Mrs Levitt a hand unloading at the shop. But none of them said they saw him, Inspector.”
“No, I don’t suppose they did, Miss Wellins,” I answered. Why would they? Whoever did see him most likely killed him, after all. I kept that to myself.
“He would have tried to be home at the usual time, though?” Fry asked. “He’d have wanted to be here to meet you?”
Elizabeth nodded. “He never went far away,” she said. “Never more than a five-minute walk, else he’d leave me a note. I was a little later that day,” she said. “I had to meet a parent after school, but I told him that. He knew.”
And maybe he went to find himself something to do whilst that wait was longer than usual. Something that took time, somewhere a bit further from home.
“And wherever he went,” Fry went on in her calm, quiet way. “He had his bookbag with him?”
Another nod. “When it wasn’t on the kitchen table when I came in, is when I thought something was wrong.”
“Did he mention any chores or jobs to you that week?” I asked. “Anything someone had asked him to do?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you, Inspector. That whole week is nothing but a blur to me.”
“Understandably so,” Fry said, Gillian nodding along with her.
Elizabeth turned her gaze back to me. “You said you need to make something certain,” she said, her brow furrowing. “That you need to know something for sure.”
“I did.”
“Do you—?” she paused. “Is there anything more concrete I can do to help that? Give you anything of Jack’s?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Do you happen to have his hairbrush?”
Twenty-One
Mills
Helping Dr Crowe had never particularly been a part of my forte. Despite all I’d seen over recent years, when it came to physically manhandling the dead, I still remained on the more squeamish side of things. But I knew that Sharp was right. One of us had to stay here for professional appearances, sure, but also to simply keep an eye on Lena. Not that she seemed to really need it. In fact, since we’d left the lab, she’d had her old spring back in her step that was both nice and slightly morbid to see.
I left Sharp’s office, heading straight downstairs as the front doors opened, and Fry walked in, brushing some dust from her shoulder as she did.
“Fry,” I said, coming to a halt. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
She smiled, tilting her head to one side. “The good kind of surprise or the bad kind?” she asked, her nose scrunching slightly.
“The good,” I laughed. “It’s always good to see you. I just thought that you had today off. I remember being jealous about it yesterday.” Not that it would have made much difference to me. When a dead body landed at our feet, Thatcher and my days off seemed to fly out of the window alongside our diet and sleeping schedules.
Fry nodded a little, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Sharp called me when you were heading back from the lab, said I might be useful.” She usually was, though it seemed unfair to drag her in when there were other constables who might do the job. Sounded like Sharp was playing favourites. Or maybe she just knew that Fry wasn’t in any way intimidated by Thatcher like a few others were.
I nodded in response, and when I looked her over, I noticed the faint flush of pride on her face from such a compliment from Sharp. She looked different today, as did most of us who came in on the days when we weren’t supposed to. Her hair was tied back, as usual, a long dark plait down her back, a few damp strands escaping from the front, curling around her eyes, and instead of her usual suit, she wore a dark jumper, a collar poking out the top and pair of jeans, the hems slightly frayed.
“Well, it’s good to see you,” I said.
“Where are you off to?” she asked.
“Downstairs. Going to give Dr Crowe a hand.”
Fry’s eyes widened slightly. “Best of luck. Where’s Thatcher?”
“Still with Sharp,” I said. “He’ll be down in a minute, I’d wager.”
Fry nodded and glanced up at the stairs. “See you around, then, Mills,” she said, leaning against the wall behind her.
“See you, Leila,” I replied, turning and walking to the stairs, heading down to where Crowe’s lab waited.
I paused in the hallway to grab some coffee from the machines and, as I waited, pressed my cool hands to my warm face. I hoped that I hadn’t been blushing talking to Fry. She just caught me off guard, was all.
The door to the lab opened, and Crowe stuck her head out.
“Are you with me, Mills?”
“I am,” I replied, not turning around from the coffee machine.
“Are you getting one for me?”
“I am.”
“Quick sticks then, Mills, we have a skeleton to work on.”
I grimaced. “You do realise that you sound rather giddy about that, Lena?”
“I rarely get to study bones like this, up close and all, Mills. Let me have my fun.”
I rolled my eyes, grabbed the hot paper cups and walked over to her, handing her one. Decaf, not that I would be the one to break that to her, and I imagined that Miriam would thank me for it. She ushered me into the lab, shutting the door behind her. It was colder than usual in here, the blinds all closed to keep the sunlight from the bones, which she had already laid out on the table. She placed her cup on her desk and handed me a spa
re lab suit, taking my coffee so that I could take my jacket off and wriggle into the suit. I pulled on the gloves she gave me, sipped my coffee, then awaited her orders.
Lena snapped some gloves onto her hands and, rubbing them together, strode over to the table.
“Now then, Isaac. What can we tell from the first glance of this skeleton?” she asked, standing by the skull.
“It’s human.”
“I know you’re being snarky, but yes, we can. Well done. What else?”
I sighed and put my cup back down, wandering over to join her. “They’re tall.”
“They are.”
“And male,” I said, looking at the shape of the pelvis.
“Or?”
“Or?”
“Prepubescent female,” she told me. “But from the height, I’d say not, unless she’s Amazonian. What else? Bear in mind that we’re looking at bare bones here, Mills, no tissue.”
“They’ve been dead for a while?”
“A few years, at least for skeletonization in our climate. Buried without a casket, might have sped things up. Now,” she clapped her hands together. “Detective brain on, please. Come and look at the head.”
I did as she asked, drifting over to stand beside her and look at the skull. There was a dent, a bash on the forehead, towards the left.
“Hit on the head,” I murmured. “But on the forehead, not the back. Usually, if someone dies from a blow to the head, it comes from the back.”
Crowe nodded, encouraging me on.
“And it’s more to the side, not in the middle. The angle’s weird.” I tapped my foot on the ground for a bit. “He fell?”
Crowe nodded again. “Break in the arm as he tried to catch himself, but he hit his head on something on the way down, and he hit it hard. I’m thinking of a sharp corner or a baluster or such like.”
“Houses and buildings in the village are old,” I told her. “So is the landscape, lots of stone. There would have been blood?”
“Oh yes. See where the skull comes in here, shards of bone are missing?”
“I see,” I said, grimacing as she made me bend down for a closer inspection.
“They came inwards, probably piercing the brain. Blood would have come out through the ears, maybe the nose and the wound itself.”
It was all a lot harder when working with just the bones. There was no skin to see scratches or bruises, no analysing the blood or skin tissue. Just bone and guess work.
Crowe walked over to her whiteboard and pulled it towards the body.
“So,” she uncapped her pen, “male, early teens, broken arm, bashed-in skull. All other bones are in good health, no sign of any fixed breaks, teeth in good condition, no fillings, minimal staining, most of which is age. We know he’s a modern man, by those standards, so now we just figure out how long he’s been dead for.”
“Is that all?” I murmured, picking up my coffee.
“Are you being snarky because you’re having to babysit me?” Crowe asked, grabbing her drink.
“I’m snarky because bones freak me out,” I told her. She nodded understandingly, her face softening instantly.
“Took me a few good years to get used to it,” she said. “And if you’re lucky, this will be your one and only skeleton.” She tapped her cup against mine.
I chuckled. “Here’s hoping. How do we age him then?” I asked.
“Good old-fashioned Carbon 14,” she said, taking a piece of bone. “Be a dear, Mills, and grab me that bottle of acid. Middle shelf, third on the left.”
I wandered over to her shelf of nightmares, unlocking the cupboard and pulling the bottle out. It had some very unfriendly warning labels on it. As I carried over, Crowe was hunched over a fragment of bone, drilling into it.
“Why the drill?” I asked, placing the bottle beside her.
“Powder,” she answered, pouring some of the acid into the beaker. “We dissolve it to get the collagen.”
I nodded along, watching over her shoulder as she fiddled with beakers and test tubes and freeze-drying, feeling like a child watching their teacher do a science demonstration at school. The process wore on long enough for us to pause and hang out in the hallway with another cup of coffee.
“How are you, Lena?” I asked in the quiet corridor.
“Better now that I’ve got something to do,” she said. “Idle hands, and all that, Mills. What about you? You looked awfully flushed when you came down here.”
“Did I really?” I asked.
“What did I miss? Did Thatcher compliment you? Did you trip over in front of everyone?”
“Neither of those things, thank you.”
“What then? The suspense kills me.”
I sighed and looked over at her, at her tired-looking face. “I bumped into someone.”
She chuckled brilliantly. “Our own constable Leila Fry?”
“Maybe,” I muttered, burying my face in my cup. “Quit grinning like that, Lena. Nothing’s going to happen.”
“No?”
“No,” I said firmly. “We’re friends.”
“I see.”
“Good friends.”
“Yes. Friends are important. Especially ones with bronze skin and shiny dark hair.”
“You’re a married woman, Lena.”
“If you think Miriam would disagree with me, you have another thing coming,” Lena said. Then she sighed and looked at her lab door. “Always a waiting game, this is. I never got how Stefan had the patience for it. Always preferred answers fast me, which is easier when your patients still have a face.”
“I suppose everyone’s got their calling,” I answered.
“I suppose so.”
“How long will this take, Lena?”
“Oh, hours yet, lad. We could have a game of Monopoly to kill time.”
“No Monopoly necessary,” a gruff voice interrupted, appearing in the hall.
Thatcher strode towards us, Fry on his heel, and stopped beside us with a nod. I straightened up, taking in his tense face.
“How did that go?” I asked.
“Surprisingly well,” he answered. “Elizabeth Wellins is a strong woman, happy to help us, even though we couldn’t really tell her anything.”
“Did she offer anything new?”
“She mentioned something about the church,” Thatcher answered, scratching his jaw. “Said that Jack would sometimes go and do a few jobs for the vicar when he could.”
“He was found by the church,” Lena pointed out. “Maybe the boy was buried where he fell.”
“Maybe,” Thatcher muttered. “But I’d like to head to the church and have a proper look around. If Jack did go there, maybe he left something behind.”
“Ten years later, sir?” I asked.
“Those churches are old, things appear and disappear in them all the time, and you could probably fit the whole village on half the pews,” he replied.
“He might have drawn on something if he got bored,” Fry offered from over Thatcher’s shoulder. “Lots of children do.”
Thatcher nodded. “Worth a shot. And maybe our friend the vicar might know if Jack did stop there on his way home.”
I nodded, finishing my coffee as I noticed a bulge in his pocket. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing.
“Oh,” he reached in and pulled out a plastic evidence bag. “Jack Wellins’s hairbrush,” he said. “I told you his mother was keen to help. So keen,” he shoved the bag in my hand and reached into his other pocket, pulling out a swab kit. “She gave us her own sample to compare against. Lena?”
Lena downed her coffee, snatched the brush from me and grabbed the swab and nodded.
“I’ll have that boy’s name to you at a rate of knots, Maxie. Can I keep my assistant?”
“Not this one,” he answered. “I’m in need of him. You can have Leila, though,” he said.
Lena beamed. “Less snarky than this one,” she muttered, jerking her thumb at me.
“One comment,” I defended m
yself. “Just the one, and was I wrong?”
“See what I’ve been dealing with?” Crowe asked.
Thatcher ignored us both as Fry grinned. “Where are we on the remains?”
“Running the carbon dating now, Thatcher, but it’s a process, my lad. You know that. I can only go as fast as the technology lets me.”
He nodded. “Right now, just knowing for a fact that it’s Jack Wellins will make a huge difference. Top priority is identification.”
“Right you are,” Lena replied. “Come on, Leila, love.”
Fry shuffled around Thatcher.
“Thanks for your help, Fry,” he called after her.
“Not at all, sir. Mills.” She nodded to me, following Lena into the lab.
I caught her arm before she reached the door, making sure Lena was inside. “I’ve been feeding her decaf.”
“Noted.” Another smile, and then she pulled her arm away and wandered into the lab, closing the door behind her.
I looked up at Thatcher, who was studying me with an odd look on his face.
“Sir?”
“Not a fan of bones, are you?”
“Not really. But we’ve got a good theory as to how the boy died,” I told him. “It’s just a shame that theories are all we’ll have on this one.”
Thatcher nodded and started walking back to the stairs. “That is annoying, but if our theories are correct, it won’t bother. Now,” he clapped his hands together. “You’re a fourteen-year-old lad, and you have some to kill before your mum comes home. What do you do with your time? Bear in mind that’s Friday.”
“Homework probably,” I answered as we walked. “Save having to do it on the weekend.”
“Good, but Jack already had time allocated for his homework. Later in the evening, when his mum was back. He has spare time, free time.”
“Chores then?” I suggested. “I mean, we know he didn’t go home to lounge on the sofa and watch telly.”
“We do know that. Jack’s a smart lad. He thinks he might as well get his chores over now so that he can have the weekend to himself, much like you would do. Which chores then?”
“None of his neighbours saw him,” I said.
Cradle to Coffin (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 10) Page 17